The Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg…

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
― Charles M. Schulz

So I’d like to follow last week’s post about being aware of how many calories you are taking in. I have little tale of me, Easter and that wonderful Easter Bunny. We had a cheat day that day and for breakfast it seemed fitting to have some chocolate before we cracked open eggs we boiled and decorated Friday night. Well, we had purchased some Reese’s Easter Eggs. They’re awesome! I looked on the back to see what the calorie count actually was…. 220. Okay, that’s actually not too bad, except that one serving size was actually only a ¼ of the egg. So the whole thing was 880! To save the suspense, I ate the whole egg! They’re not that big! And did I mention they are awesome?! Oh so good! But this leads to this PSA. When we look on the back at the food label, just remember that the calories listed is based on a serving and more often than not, when it comes to that delicious junk food, the servings are not big at all! It becomes really easy to slip and take in way more calories as a result. Another great example of this is potato chips—especially kettle-cooked jalapeño chips. On the back the calorie count is 150, but that bag of air I purchased actually contains six servings! Now, I’m likely to fill a small bowl full of these chips to snack on while watching some rugby, and that small bowl just took over half the bag. And I’ll likely have two bowls while watching the game, so I very quickly just went through the bag. Oops! I just took in 900 calories without even trying. This is the real danger as a society we’ve put ourselves in. Calories have never been more plentiful or cheaper, and it is too easy to take in too much. Now, I don’t want to get into the sugar addictions and how our brains are wired to seek sugar and fat out. But our brains are wired for those things and we have made it way too easy to get that stuff. What I do want to say is just be aware! With this awareness comes the ability to pick and choose, and on the days you do decide to indulge, then I would strongly suggest that the other days you ought to not touch these types of foods at all. Remember, a leaf of lettuce has 5 calories, so you can eat a lot of nutrient-rich food without the fear of taking in the excess calories that does occur when we do eat the junk food—which does taste good—but really does not have a single useful nutrient that our bodies need.